Got another "sorry, the D4 is not yet in stock" notice this morning from Adorama. In an effort to keep them honest (they say they are selling by order date/time) I propose keeping a list going here to be sure we are getting our D4's from Adorama in a fair and orderly way. This is for Adorama D4 orders only. My order was placed on January 6th (ordered on website-not sure of the exact time). If you are not a "Nikon Professional member" and you have received your D4 order placed on or after January 6th from Adorama, I (and I suspect many others too) would like to know about it. I will post when (and if) I receive mine so you can get some sense of where in the line you stand. Regardless of what you read on here and elsewhere, Adorama will NOT tell you where you are in the order line nor will they tell you how many orders for the D4 they have received. I am not bad mouthing them - they are at the mercy of Nikon USA but I just want to be sure they are being fair and honest about distribution. If you have any info to add, please post under this thread. Thanks!

gan106 said:
Got another "sorry, the D4 is not yet in stock" notice this morning from Adorama. In an effort to keep them honest (they say they are selling by order date/time) I propose keeping a list going here to be sure we are getting our D4's from Adorama in a fair and orderly way. This is for Adorama D4 orders only. My order was placed on January 6th (ordered on website-not sure of the exact time). If you are not a "Nikon Professional member" and you have received your D4 order placed on or after January 6th from Adorama, I (and I suspect many others too) would like to know about it. I will post when (and if) I receive mine so you can get some sense of where in the line you stand. Regardless of what you read on here and elsewhere, Adorama will NOT tell you where you are in the order line nor will they tell you how many orders for the D4 they have received. I am not bad mouthing them - they are at the mercy of Nikon USA but I just want to be sure they are being fair and honest about distribution. If you have any info to add, please post under this thread. Thanks!

I got the same email.
I'm wondering now if that illusive D400 wont be a realistic camera to get one's hands on first?

Hi, Thanks for starting this post.
I placed my order with Adorama with in the first hour of them having pre- orders open. I also placed my order on the web site. I also received the same e-mail this morning. I am beyond frustrated with them. I have friends that placed orders with B+H days after me and have received their cameras. I thought with such a short opening of pre-orders before me that there was no need to place a pre order at other vendors. I was very wrong.
I have tried calling "Jeff" and have had multiple e-mails with "Helen Oster
Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador" and the only other information I can offer is a conversation with Helen :
Helen, What is the phone number and extension for the "Purchasing Manager". (Supposedly the only person that knows where you are on the list) I would like to speak with someone that actually knows something. An e-mail address would also be helpful. Thanks
Reply was:
Dear Mike

You can call "******" the purchasing manager for Nikon: *******

I hope this helps, but please do come back to me if you need help with anything else, now or in the future.

Best Wishes

Helen

In short the customer service at Adorama sucks, they have lost a customer for life and, yes, I plan on telling everyone that will listen about my poor experience with them, for years to come!

@lyonsphotos - unless You show me a written permission from this product manager (or Helen Oster from Adorama drops me a PM) to show his personal data online I'm not gonna allow this data to be seen here

Helen, if you (Adorama) didn't piss off customers so much with your greedy policy of taking thousands of preorders without regard to being able to fill them in some timely fashion and then with your (Adorama's) irresponsible attitude of not letting people know where they stand in line you wouldn't have people trying to figure out if they are number 4,840 on the list and you just filled order number 234 on the list yesterday. No one is saying you can predict exactly what day or week Nikon will send you the camera you can use to fill a preorder. No one is asking you to do that. But to stonewall customers from knowing where they stand on the list and where you are on the list is irresponsible on your part.

How hard would it be to send each customer an e-mail letting them know where they stand on the list. "You are preorder number 4,325." And then to place a page on your website which simply lists the last preorder you filled? You already send e-mails letting people know their order is still on backorder. You could add info to that e-mail giving the customer his exact number on the list. You already maintain an extensive website will all sorts in items for sale as well as Adorama TV and Adoramapix. I think you have the ability to let customers know their preorder number and to publish a weekly update as to where you are on the preorder list. This is not rocket science. Simple information is all your customers are asking for. When you refuse to provide it you have rightfully earned their anger.

It is not adorama's fault. Both amazon and BH are doing the same thing. All other online resellers simply would not give out anymore information what we get from adorama. I really think accusing Adorama alone is not fair.

Id accuse them all. All the big resellers such as Adorama, Amazon , and BH pissed me off. in comparison, many local dealers would tell customer their number of list.

What can we do about it? We dont want to pay tax , then we got buy the camera online. Or just buy it from smaller local shop and pay for the tax.

Let me suggest you can accept a reasonable amount of preorders and then you should stop taking them when you realize you already have thousands and will not be able to deliver for 6 months or so or you should so inform the people from whom you are still taking preorders. I think Amazon stopped taking preorders and I think B&H has been delivering on the preorders they took. So yes they all took preorders. But it seems B&H and Amazon took less of them. It seems to me from what I have read that B&H and Amazon acted more responsibly about this than did Adorama. But that is just my impression. I may be wrong.

we are all on the same boat. D4 order from Adorama. but at least I found out now that I'm not alone and I'm not the first who made a preorder since I made that on 14 February, only? no information, etc. I clearly understood now why my order is still not available.

as for the rest, do You people don't understand that as much as You blame Adorama, BH, BestBuy You can blame both Your (american) law and yourself. How many of You have posted preorders in more than one place? Do You know that according to us law all resellers should be treated the same way. if Adorama gets 5 units than Mr Smith & co should also get 5 units. Apart from that, US is not the center of the world and Nikon doesn't ship all its product to this market. Nikon manufactures currently around 20000-30000 d800 per month and around 5000 d4 monthly. Around 1/3 of this numbers go to US market, that gives 6666-10000 d800 and 1666 d4 monthly in stocks. so be patient and if You couldn't wait and sold Your equipment before You got a new one than You could blame on You and noone else.

shawino - You think such information should be provided online? let me post Your contact details here and let's see what will happen. Please think rationally before You post.

as for the rest, do You people don't understand that as much as You blame Adorama, BH, BestBuy You can blame both Your (american) law and yourself. How many of You have posted preorders in more than one place? Do You know that according to us law all resellers should be treated the same way. if Adorama gets 5 units than Mr Smith & co should also get 5 units. Apart from that, US is not the center of the world and Nikon doesn't ship all its product to this market. Nikon manufactures currently around 20000-30000 d800 per month and around 5000 d4 monthly. Around 1/3 of this numbers go to US market, that gives 6666-10000 d800 and 1666 d4 monthly in stocks. so be patient and if You couldn't wait and sold Your equipment before You got a new one than You could blame on You and noone else.

shawino - You think such information should be provided online? let me post Your contact details here and let's see what will happen. Please think rationally before You post.

In that case, id blame on amazon, BH, Adorama, NIkon , us law, and americans. I dont care who to blame, but id blame on someone ( include myself ) before i get the camera in my hand.

Think rational, id only blame on nikon released such good cameras. Oh i hate nikon so much because they make good products :)

Now, finally, someone has made some sense. A note regarding the use of online contact data. I have advertised some equipment for sale on various selling websites. The result is a storm of emails, most with photos of nude men and women and with links to some place I do not go. Also, links asking me to click to view videos. Additionally, in selling items, I have in my possession three "cashier's checks" for a total of about $45,000 USD. All are counterfeit and were intended to defraud me out of money or merchandise.

As to retailers selling merchandise and not informing of the "status" on a list. This becomes a game. It has been admitted by many on NRF they have placed several pre orders at various retailers. So, who are the honest ones? If a retailer has 1000 pre-orders, obtains these from a supplier, yet 20% are cancelled then that retailer is in very serious cash flow status. So, they must maintain some flexibility and fill orders as they receive the cameras, being aware of the dishonesty of the customer who may cancel if they get their order filled from another retailer.

Or, if the retailers required a 10% deposit, wow, can you imagine the loud voices we would hear then.

Actually, I believe NIKON does have some problems in the early production runs, and at some point will be recalling or at least offering service at a quick return, to correct what appears to be a contamination problem on the sensors. This is reported as "oil" or "dirt" on the sensor, and my D4 has a couple of these spots. No doubt NIKON is attempting to correct this in the manufacturing process, and this may also have slowed the production down to a small degree. Let's not forget the horrible disasters in Japan and Thailand.

But maybe kevin pan said it best... I hate NIKON so much because they make such good products....

The bottom line is Adorama is a privately-owned, family business and we run it the best way we know to keep the people who depend on us for employment in work and to give our customers a wide range range of photography products at competitive prices.

We believe that it would be irresponsible to advise our competitors how many back orders we have, which is exactly what we would be doing if we started giving out the information you are asking for.

In addition, as I have said over and over, if even 50% of purchasers have their names on 8 or 10 pre-order lists, and shipments from Nikon range between 12 and 1,000 units at a time, it doesn't actually give customers any useful information.

The real problem is I hate the way your old gear just stops working when a new model is announced don't you? There you are happily working with your camera then *BANG* Nikon announces a new, better model and suddenly you just can't do anything with the old one!

All you can do is spend your time ranting about how terrible it is you can't get one NOW to carry on your important work. You have no choice but phone every dealer on the continent and make each one the same promise to buy one from them. Nikon stoopidly see this as a massive surge of interest so they run themselves ragged hurrying to satisfy demand and in haste make a few small mistakes so when you do get the camera, it has oil on the sensor or whatever. <SIGH> Life just isn't fair is it?

I am so glad I don't have a customer service responsibilities now. Joe Public can be a pain to deal with.

adamz writes in part:
=====
as for the rest, do You people don't understand that as much as You blame Adorama, BH, BestBuy You can blame both Your (american) law and yourself.
=====

That's hilarious. Adorama's poor customer service has nothing to do with American law (or the law of any other country). If anyone can find me a statute that says Adorama is not allowed to be transparent with its customers, to help them understand where they are on the waiting list, well, I've got a D5 prototype to sell as soon as I finish a unicorn shoot this afternoon.

HelenOster posts it plain and simple: "We believe that it would be irresponsible to advise our competitors how many back orders we have, which is exactly what we would be doing if we started giving out the information you are asking for."

That is, Adorama would rather protect what it sees as a competitive advantage than be open with its customers. I can't get my head around what that competitive advantage might be, in fact I think it's strictly paranoia, but I agree: if that's how Adorama wants to behave, that's Adorama's call. And I think it's poor.

adamz continues:
=====
shawino - You think such information should be provided online? let me post Your contact details here and let's see what will happen. Please think rationally before You post.
=====

Since you asked, Son, my boss gives out my work-contact info all the time: over the phone, over the web, likely in snail mail. We also encourage our clients to pass my contact info around. Why? We try to be as open with our customers as we can be. We want happy customers. We want to retain customers. Maybe get new customers.

Adamz, you can post my work info if you like and get me some business. I don't work in a camera shop, nor with Nikon, nor in the photography industry, so I'd never fish for clients here. But if you want to fish for me, send me a PM.

Helen: "We believe that it would be irresponsible to advise our competitors how many back orders we have, which is exactly what we would be doing if we started giving out the information you are asking for." See, this is the problem people are trying to point out to you. You place your self-interest ahead of serving the interests of your customers. Why is it so hard to tell people where they are in line and where you are filling orders in that same line? When you send a customer his number why is that harming you? I assume you mean that you will lose sales if someone finds out they are 5,000 on your list and you are only filling order number 800 and B&H has a much shorter list. So you determine that you would rather piss off customers and let them wait 6 more months then let them go look for and find the product they want elsewhere. Why don't you see that should be the customer's choice, not yours? Serving the interests of customers would gain long term loyalty for your business. Your present practice of telling customers you want them to wait who knows how long so you don't lose the profit on their camera does not create customer loyalty. No one is saying you can get cameras any faster. No one is blaming you for that. Everyone understands you can only ship what you receive. But it is entirely within your control to treat customers decently and not put your self interest ahead of providing them with the information you know and could so easily tell them.

I really doubt 50% of the people on your preorder list have their names on 8 or 10 other lists. Be realistic in your assumptions please. And let people determine what use they will make of the simple information they are asking for. All you are saying is: we place ourselves ahead of you our customers and you customers are all too stupid to intelligently use the information you are asking for anyway. Cannot you see this is bad customer relations?

msmoto: I don't think telling customers where they are on the list and where Adorama is in filling preorders would cause a cash flow problem for Adorama. As Adorama gets close to the end of the preorder list they can simply reduce their orders from Nikon. By that time all the people who canceled their orders will have washed out of the process and Adorama will have sent their cameras to the next persons on the list. It seems to me there is only one reason for Adorama to not tell people: fear of losing a profit on a camera if a person realizes there are thousands of people ahead of them and they then go out searching elsewhere for the camera they want. That should be the customer's choice given the information they are seeking from Adorama. If Adorama cared about keeping customers happy they would let the customer make that choice. Adorama is now attempting to hold all their preorders hostage to make the profit on a camera they may not be able to deliver for 6 months. If the customer wants to wait that long, fine. But is should be the customer's choice.

B&H: Here is your opportunity! Adorama has offered it up to you on a silver platter. Post in this thread how many preorders you have and where you are in filing them. When people see you providing the information they are asking for many will jump ship from Adorama and get in your line instead. Let Adorama's self-serving business practice increase your business!

I had no idea when I started this thread yesterday morning that it seems to have touched a raw nerve or two! My idea was simply to create a data base of sorts so that those of us who ordered a D4 from Adorama would have some sense of how fast the pre-order line was moving and a person would be able to better guess (in the absence of information from Adorama) where they might be in the line. For the record, I only placed one order for a D4 and it was with Adorama (color me naive, if you like). I am a customer of theirs (I've spent over $700 on other photo related items since my D4 order was placed) and I have tried to keep my end of the 'customer/vendor' relationship. I will admit that I was becoming discouraged with the lack of information from Adorama and that is why I started the thread. Having no idea when or if I will get a D4 from Adorama, I did start calling around yesterday to other dealers both large and small to see if I would have better luck. I finally talked to a medium-large camera dealer in my area yesterday afternoon on the phone and here, in brief, was the conversation:
Me: I am looking to purchase a Nikon D4. What is your availability like?
Camera shop: We don't have any more in stock and we can't be sure when a new shipment will be coming in but we can take your name and number and will call you when they come in (note: no credit card info was requested)
Me: OK. How long is your waiting list?
Camera Shop: Let me check.......You will be number six on the list.
Me: OK. Sign me up!

Now THAT, in my book, is good customer service! Honest and as transparent as they could possibly be and with them, I know where I stand. Guess who will be getting my future business. We all understand we will have to wait our turn for an excellent camera--what we don't appreciate is anything less than good customer service. The price is pretty much the same (ignoring tax for a moment) everywhere and we customers can move our business with the click of a mouse. Retailers who don't understand this will not succeed in the end. I actually like Adorama (their Adorama TV is excellent) and I hope they can get their act together better and continue to be among the success stories.

We are holding nobody 'hostage'; we've not charged anyone for their units, so any customer who dislikes our policies is free to choose to cancel their order. Personally, I'd rather see people get their gear soonest and if I was in the same position for sure I'd be looking elsewhere - while keeping all my options open.

I think maybe I wasn't clear; if we could be 100% certain that if we advised every customer on our b/order list of their position in line that they wouldn't post this info on an online forum such as this, but keep it to themselves, I believe it would be a completely different story. But we can't.

The policy has nothing to do with cash flow, and we don't get the opportunity to reduce orders from Nikon because we get what we are given - and accept them gratefully. It also has little to do with profit; the relationship with manufacturers is complex and is about more than simply accessibility to products. But these are issues which are confidential between retailer and manufacturer over which we have little control.

My figure of 50% of people with their names on numerous lists is based on the emails I receive, and the postings I read across all the forums blogs and shopping sites that I follow.

At the end of the day, please don’t take your frustration out on me. I’m not the boss and I don’t make the decisions. I only dropped in here to give information. I can see that I’m not welcome so I will depart........

HelenOster said:
In addition, as I have said over and over, if even 50% of purchasers have their names on 8 or 10 pre-order lists, and shipments from Nikon range between 12 and 1,000 units at a time, it doesn't actually give customers any useful information.

Helen, I appreciate the time you have taken out of your busy schedule to explain why Adorama does what it does. I realize this is a frustrating situation for everyone involved, and I think people who want to know their place in line want to have some control over an uncontrollable situation.

I was on three different back order lists, and I knew my place in line with the local camera shop was 5th, but I eventually received my camera from Amazon, which only gave a vague estimated delivery time frame. I was also bumped once on Amazon's estimated delivery time when they ran out of camera's and couldn't deliver per the estimated delivery.

There are too many variables in my eyes for the place in line on any list to mean anything. The cancelation of multiple pre-orders will move people closer to the front of the line, and a stop, or slow down in production could bring shipments to a halt.

I also understand that Nikon does not give retailers any indication to the amount of cameras they will receive, which is understandable since production problems might prevent the promised amount from being delivered, which would anger customers who were told they would receive their camera on the next shipment.

I appreciate what retailers have to deal with to stay in business, and I will continue to support Adorama, B and H, Amazon, and Nikon.

Helen: Don't take it personal. Everyone realizes you are just an employee and don't set store policy. People just don't like the policy, that's all. No one has been asking for a guaranteed delivery date or even an estimated delivery date; just some indication of how many people are ahead of them in line, that's all. You are welcome here. We are glad to have you. No one is criticizing you personally. Knowledge of policy, even one we don't like, is better than no knowledge at all.

Actually, I think plenty of people would rather wait than run around on a camera hunt if they learn there are just a hundred or so people ahead of them but if there are thousands ahead of them some people would like to know that so they can start the search elsewhere, especially if they have an important shoot scheduled in the next few months. That's all. It is no big deal.

So what really is the big risk if Adorama told people their place in line and where Adorama was in filling orders? You say the information would be meaningless because many preorders ahead of that person may be cancelled. That isn't a negative, the person just gets their camera earlier than they expected. That is good, not bad. All cancellations can do is speed up the process, not delay it. The only reason I see for you to keep this information "secret" is to try to keep people from shopping elsewhere when they realize there are thousands of people ahead of them. That is what I mean by "hostage." Adorama is trying to hold on to future sales by denying people knowledge it has and can easily share. It is their "Adorama first" policy rather than a "customer first" policy that is the reason for the criticism Adorama has been getting. No one expects you to be able to change it. You just work there. But likewise there is nothing wrong with some of us criticizing Adorama for this policy.